onsdag 25. juli 2012

I'm going to Närcon tomorrow and I think that I have finally figured out what I want to wear. This is a four day convention and therefor I will need four costumes. As I am not entering any contests I am resorting to reuse of old costumes, but I can't resist making something new.

I didn't take that many pictures of this process. Basically cut out the shape in cardboard, curve it by making it wet and laying it on a curves surface. For the boot covers I taped the wet cardboard to a soda bottle. When Dried add strips of cardboard around the edges and a couple of furniture nails as detail.

Cover your molds in filler. It is easier to make sword slashes in wet filler than to sand them out, so be creative in this stage and slash about. When dried, sanded and painted silver it is time for weathering. (more about weathering)

mandag 9. juli 2012

Since I had very little time, I used prefabricated sugar bread as a base.

Cut out squares.

First layer, raspberry/apple jam

Second layer, whipped cream

Repeat with jam and cream. You can moisten the sugar bread with juice or lemon soda.

Go layers, I ended up with nine in total

All walls covered with cream

MarzipanI tinted the marzipan with orange food color and cut out a cross fitting the walls. I found out that this was easiest done on a baking paper which also made transportation and the mounting job easier.

Here the baking paper is still attached to the marzipan. Next step is squeezing the edges together.

Then trimming edges.

DecorationUsing a "?" decal I made a question mark out of plain white marzipan for all four sides and the top, gluing it on using powdered sugar and water.

tirsdag 3. juli 2012

I have seen others make this armor out of wonderflex and thermoplastics. Due to limits concerning time, budget and availability I went for a known approach - paper mache. See post about Big Sister helmet for more info about paper mache.My mold this time was my tailor bust which I covered in plastic.

Wrapping my Bust in plastic and putting on layer upon layer of paper mache

The dried up piece with trimmed edges. To stiffen the paper mold you could paint on a layer of epoxy and glass fiber on the back. A simpler, but not as effective method is to cover the inside with duct tape, as I did.

Front and back ready for details and filler. First coat the molds with filler and sand. Then glue on cardboard details. Than cover everything with filler again.

Back piece primed and sanded.

Along the lower edges I have attached a new layer of cardboard, covering it in filler to smooth out the edges.

Weathering, schmearing out black paint. Elevated areas (details) are just layers of cardboard glued to the original cast and covered with filler.

The front and back pieces are attached together using skai strips and velcro. The shoulder guard is made from paper mache over a balloon with cardboard details, too bad I don't have pictures of this process.

All about me:

Hello, I’m Christina also known as Chrix Design. I’m a software tester by day, costume maker by night. Most of my life I have been a little "know it all" and very creative. This evolved into me being a science nerd as a child as well as I sewed my own Barbie clothes. In the end I got a Master’s degree in Industrial design engineering. My childhood was also full of video games and my first prop came together mainly because I wanted a Portal Gun over my fireplace. I exploited every occasion to dress up and loved making more and more original costumes. It wasn't until 2011 I heard about cosplay, where had it been all my life! I got so many friends with the same passions for games, costumes, craft and books as me. After this I had no more spare time, there was always a costume to build a tutorial to write and new friends to meet. But I won’t say no to a round of Halo, an evening of board games or watching old Disney movies.
You can contact me at chrix.design.props@gmail.com or via my facebook page.